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Abrash

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A word of Turkish origin normally used to describe the color of a horse; it means dappled, speckled or mottled. The term has long been used in the trade to describe the small variations in hue and saturation found within a single color in a carpet. It applies to two distinct phenomena. The first is caused by the crude technology of the tribal and village dyer, which, combined with variations in yarn diameter, makes small variations in the color of yarn dyed as a single batch. In the carpet this appears as a mottling which gives the color an attractive depth; an absolutely uniform color, by comparison, appears dull and dead. The second is the abrupt change in color occurring at the point where one batch of wool finishes and another, not quite matching, begins: a distinct horizontal line is visible at the junction between the two batches.

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